Publications

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March 2006
Module Note

Financing Decisions within the Firm

By: Mihir A. Desai and Kathleen Luchs

Describes a core module in the International Finance course at Harvard Business School. The module focuses on the financial and managerial issues that confront managers who make financial decisions within multinational firms: how subsidiaries should be financed and... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; International Finance; Taxation; Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Framework; Performance Evaluation; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

October 1980 (Revised June 1993)
Background Note

Introduction to Decision Analysis

By: Paul A. Vatter

Keywords: Decision Making; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

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1988
Other Unpublished Work

Structure of the U.S. Government Decision Making Process - HBS Technical Note - See professor

By: J. Ronald Fox

Keywords: Decision Making; Government and Politics; United States

1 Feb 2008
Lecture

The Devil Wears Prada: The Effect of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Ethical Decision Making

By: Roy Y.J. Chua and X. Zou

Keywords: Luxury; Ethics; Decision Making

October 2000 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Vyaderm Pharmaceuticals: The EVA Decision

By: Robert Simons and Indra A. Reinbergs

In 2016, the new CEO of Vyaderm Pharmaceuticals introduces an Economic Value Added (EVA) program to focus the company on long-term shareholder value. The EVA program consists of three elements: EVA centers (business units), EVA drivers (operational practices that... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Employee Relationship Management; Economic Growth; Economic Systems; Management; Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance Evaluation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Washington (state, US)

May 2004 (Revised May 2006)
Case

AsiaInfo: The IPO Decision

The cofounder and CEO of AsiaInfo, a Chinese system integrator that built 70% of China's Internet backbone, must decide whether to list equity in the United States to fund future growth. Describes the company and the decision. A rewritten version of a previous case. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Initial Public Offering; Growth Management; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Equity; Information Technology Industry; China; United States

March 2018 (Revised September 2023)
Case

X: The Foghorn Decision

By: Robert S. Huckman, Karim R. Lakhani and Kyle R. Myers

In February 2016, Kathy Hannun—a project leader at X, Alphabet Inc.'s so-called "moonshot factory"—had to prepare a recommendation for the senior leadership of X regarding the future of Foghorn, a project she was leading to develop a carbon-neutral process for... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; R＆D Project Management; Radical Innovation; Clean Technology; Innovation and Management; Technological Innovation; Energy; Research and Development; Projects; Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; California

01 Jun 2009
News

Decisions through the Ages

WATANABE: A primer for all ages on how to think entrepreneurially. Photo Courtesy Portfolio/Penguin Group USA In business and education, Japan and the United States seem to alternate as inspirations for one another, and Ken Watanabe (MBA ’05) may be the latest guru in... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

Article

How Do Fairness Definitions Fare? Examining Public Attitudes Towards Algorithmic Definitions of Fairness

By: Nripsuta Saxena, Karen Huang, Evan DeFilippis, Goran Radanovic, David C. Parkes and Yang Liu

What is the best way to define algorithmic fairness? While many definitions of fairness have been proposed in the computer science literature, there is no clear agreement over a particular definition. In this work, we investigate ordinary people’s perceptions of three... View Details

Keywords: Fairness; Decision Making; Perception; Attitudes; Public Opinion

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September 2020 (Revised July 2022)
Exercise

Artea (B): Including Customer-Level Demographic Data

By: Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli

This collection of exercises aims to teach students about 1)Targeting Policies; and 2)Algorithmic bias in marketing—implications, causes, and possible solutions. Part (A) focuses on A/B testing analysis and targeting. Parts (B),(C),(D) Introduce algorithmic bias. The... View Details

Keywords: Targeting; Algorithmic Bias; Race; Gender; Marketing; Diversity; Customer Relationship Management; Demographics; Prejudice and Bias; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Technology Industry; United States

October 2000 (Revised December 2000)
Exercise

Participant and Leader Behavior: Group Decision Simulation (D)

This series provides the instructions for a group decision-making simulation in which students experience four different methods for leading a group decision process. In the simulation, all students work in groups, with one person designated as the team leader. All... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Decision Making

October 2000 (Revised December 2000)
Exercise

Participant and Leader Behavior: Group Decision Simulation (F)

This series provides the instructions for a group decision-making simulation in which students experience four different methods for leading a group decision process. In the simulation, all students work in groups, with one person designated as the team leader. All... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Decision Making

Article

How to Tackle Your Toughest Decisions

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

The toughest calls managers have to make come in situations when they have worked hard to gather the facts and have done the best analysis they can, but they still don’t know what to do. Then judgment—a fusion of thinking, feelings, experience, imagination, and... View Details

Keywords: Management; Judgments

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February 1991
Case

Burlington Northern: The ARES Decision (A)

By: Julie H. Hertenstein and Robert S. Kaplan

Burlington Northern's decision whether to invest in ARES, an automated train control system, is a ($350 million) strategic investment in information technology. Although set in a service industry (railroad) the issues around this decision arise in many organizations... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Rail Transportation; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Performance Effectiveness; Cost vs Benefits; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Customers; Quality; Rail Industry

30 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

Looking Behind Bad Decisions

political science to explain drivers behind the crafting of public policy. Now Bazerman and coauthors Jonathan Baron and Katherine Shonk are looking into the psychology of decision making to provide a fuller... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

February 2014
Article

Gender Differences in Willingness to Guess

By: Katherine Baldiga Coffman

We present the results of an experiment that explores whether women are less willing than men to guess on multiple-choice tests. Our test consists of practice questions from SAT II subject tests; we vary whether a penalty is imposed for a wrong answer and the salience... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Decision Making; Microeconomic Behavior; Education Systems; Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions; Gender; Economics